Sunday, June 19, 2011

This weekend was the first big Oakland Dirt Owls trip. It was so awesome! Two nights on the dirt in the Eden of MTbs, Marin County. We ended up only having two vintage Mtbs on the ride, and they performed admirably. All the other bikes were touring rigs kinda monster cross style. I could probably write about it until you got bored but I'll just post the pics instead.

Burrito's eye view at the first camp:

The cold, cold fog rolls in

In an attempt to go light most of us tried the "tarp taco" technique with mixed results. Mark brought that crazy hunk of Tyvek, to clinch the title of most unnatural sounding squeaky tarp taco.

Just the tip of the Golden Gate Bridge

Descending at the start of day two.

And climbing back out of the valley, fog on our heels.

Just a better look at Brian's new Hunqapillar. This is a really excellent bike, plus it's always nice to see how people deal with the load for off road riding.

And on that subject here's Marks front bag he's been working on. Seems like this is the final phase of the design. He sews them himself, and I guess they're called Mark Bags. Also of note the bag is sitting on one of Matt Feeney's incredible/ beautiful/super useful Pass and Stow front racks.

Tamar in the 'nar

Fog still chasing us...

This was an awesome little ridge descent.

Breaking the law.

Turing the corner after lunch, popping out on the road, and coming down fast. This was the view waiting for us.

The trail head

A minute before Tamar's small wipe out!

Stoked Mark

Stoked Gabe

I love this shot. How rad is it to get to cruise with 5 friends down a trail like this?

Trail side

Entering the meadow.

The crew again.

This is everyone all spread out snaking their way across.

So killer!

Nearing the end, jiggle fest.

Kinda like that Andrew Wyeth paining.

At one point on the ride I was just one little hill behind Sam. Coming over the rise I see Sam's foot flying through the air; this was the result.

Tamar at the end of the ride, so tough! Another Pass and Stow here, product test?

The full crew. We were joined by Joe and Fay for the camping portion on Saturday night. Stoked that they rode out and met us on their way the the Russian River.

True to form, this blog will show some vintage MTBs! We ran into this killer Fisher at the grocery in Fairfax. I'm guessing its a Mt Tam model, but that's just a left field guess. It's a fillet brazed model, and what looked like pressed-in bottom bracket cups.

The details:

Curious if these are still available...

Looks mighty close to a Ritchey. I was inside taking a leak when the owner emerged and rode off, so no small talk about the bike. My buddies outside managed to say "nice bike" to the old guy in a Hawaiian shirt and I guess he smiled and rode off. Hopefully we were both finishing off a killer weekend!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

CoEvolution quarterly had the first article ever published about mountain biking in 1978. I was lucky enough to find a copy at Book Zoo recently. Read the article for yourself on Charlie Kelly's website hereThese old mags are so good!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Slowly getting Emma's rig in shape. I'm obsessed with the Uff Das. I thought they wouldn't fit but I tried mine out on her frame last week and they fit! I tried to get a pic or two showing the clearance. Even though bullmoose bars are cool on this bike I think I'm gonna change them out. They have a bunch of rise, way more than most bullmoose bars I've seen. Emma agrees and isn't comfy on them.